Trump slams Amazon for paying ‘no taxes’
WASHINGTON DC: US President Donald Trump on Friday slammed Amazon for paying "no taxes" to state and local governments as reports emerged that he is seeking tougher regulations against the Seattlebased company, which now has a global presence, including in India.
"I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election. Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state and local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the US), and are put- ting many thousands of retailers out of business!," Trump said in a tweet.
The White House defended Trump's statement, saying action is being planned. "The President has expressed his concerns with Amazon. We have no actions at this time," Deputy Press Secretary Lindsay Walters told reporters on board Air Force One.
"You heard the President speak this morning on his displeasure regarding Amazon. He has made it clear that his concerns — you know, some users of Amazon are not paying state sales taxes, which is putting many brick and mortar retailers out of business," she alleged.
Trump's tweet comes a day after news site Axios reported that he "hates" Amazon and has talked about changing Amazons tax treatment because he was "worried" about mom-and-pop retailers being put out of busi- ness. He's wondered aloud if there may be any way to go after Amazon with anti-trust or competition law," Axios said quoting an unnamed source.
"Trump's deep-seated antipathy toward Amazon surfaces when discussing tax policy and anti-trust cases. The president would love to clip CEO Jeff Bezos wings. But he doesn't have a plan to make that happen," Axios said.
It is well known that there is a personal feud between Trump and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who now also owns The Washington Post. During his presidential election campaign days, Trump had said, The Washington Post had a team of some 20 reporters to write stories against him.
As a result of Trumps tweet, the shares of Amazon dropped in the market by nine per cent. The net worth of Bezos who is now the richest man in the world dropped by $10.7 billion.
Soon after Trump's tweet, the White House indicated imposing taxes on such companies. "Right now there is no Internet sales tax," White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah told Fox news. NEW DELHI: Small and midcap indices of the BSE have taken a bigger hit as compared to their bigger peers, with smaller stocks falling up to 12 per cent so far this year.
While the small-cap index has fallen by 11.62 per cent to 16,994.36 so far in 2018, the mid-cap index dropped 10.43 per cent to 15,962.59, an analysis of their performance showed.
The BSE flagship Sensex, meanwhile, lost 3.19 per cent to 32,968.68 so far this year. The 30-share index touched its all-time high of 36,443.98 on January 29, 2018.
The small-cap index scaled its record high of 20,183.45 on January 15 this year and the mid-cap index hit its lifetime peak of 18,321.37 on January 9, 2018.
"We had a good rally during the first 10 months of FY18, led by strong inflows from domestic and foreign investors. In the last two months, large, mid and small-cap indices have fallen due to selling pressure from LTCG and increase in domestic and global bond yield," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services.
Rally in the market derailed February onwards. The Sensex surged 6.36 per cent in January, while in February it lost 4.79 per cent and in March it fell by 3.16 per cent.
Small stocks tend to suffer more during times of uncer- tainty, experts said.
"As we step into FY19, we see several headwinds like political uncertainties, rising bond yields, global trade issues and slowdown in foreign fund flows. Key triggers for Indian markets in FY19 could be political developments and outcome of large state elections like Karnataka, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh," said Sandeep Chordia, Executive Vice-president Strategy, Kotak Securities.